The village of Bergen,
officially begun on September 5, 1661, is regarded as New Jersey's first
permanent settlement and the state's first local civil government. It
is now part of the City of Jersey City.

Started by the Dutch
in 1660, the Bergen was laid out in a walled area of about 800-foot square.
A palisade of tall pointed wooden stakes, with a gate on each side, surrounded
the land that was designed around two intersecting main streets (present-day
Bergen Avenue and Academy Street), creating four quarters. A road south
from the intersection led to the Kill van Kull at Bergen Point and a road
east led to Communipaw. Eight
plots were then drawn out in each of the quarters. The village's palisade
lines are still visible in contemporary maps of Jersey City by locating
Bergen Square and following the configuration created by Tuers Avenue
(Southeast), Newkirk Street (Northeast), Van Reypen Street (Northwest),
and Vroom Street (Southwest). Today Bergen Square, the headquarters of
the township, is three blocks south of Journal Square.

The founding of Bergen
Township may be credited to Peter
Stuyvesant, Director-General of New Netherland. After the cessation
of Indian hostilities in 1655, Stuyvesant negotiated with the Indian chiefs
in the area (January 30, 1658) for the repurchase of lands "between
the Hackensack and North (Hudson) rivers from Weehawken and Secaucus to
the Kill van Kull" (Lovero 12). At his request, the Council of New
Amsterdam approved a hilltop site for a garrison-style town or village.
Settlers from throughout the Pavonia area were to move to the fort where
they could defend themselves with a militia against the Indians.

The site chosen was
a former cornfield cleared by the Hackensack Indians on the "heights"
and was referred to as "the new village on the maizeland." It
was surveyed by Jacques Cortelyou and given the name "Bergen,"
the Dutch word for hill. It may have come from the capital of Norway or
from Bergen op Zoom in Holland, eighteen miles north of Antwerp. (Cortelyou
also surveyed the Town of New Utrecht, now part of Brooklyn, NY, and Cortelyou
Road in Brooklyn is named after him.) Settlers built homes on lots within
the fort and established farms outside the fort, creating a defensive
zone against the Indians. The location of the town was favorable for settlers
in other sections of present-day New Jersey to reach in the event of future
hostilities. The palisade was dismantled by the Dutch with the cessation
of Indian hostilities.

In 1661, Stuyvesant
granted Bergen limited powers of self-government and a Court of Inferior
Justice. Bergen may also claim the state's first established congregation,
the Dutch Reformed Church/
Old Bergen Church, and the first
elementary school; Englebert
Steenhuysen, the church clerk, became the school's first schoolmaster
in 1662.

After the English
took over the colony of New Netherland in 1664, a charter granted by Governor
Philip Carteret recognized Bergen Township. It allowed for the continuation
of the Dutch-founded church and free school. On April 7, 1668, Carteret
and his council of East New Jersey renamed the site "The Towne and
Corporation of Bergen" that extended west to the Hackensack River.
After the English took over New Netherland in 1664, Bergen County was
established to include Bergen and Hackensack townships with the county
seat at Bergen Square until 1714, when it was removed to Hackensack until
the formation of Hudson County in 1840.

Only a handful of
landmarks remain to connect contemporary Jersey City with its Dutch origins.
These historic sites today include the Apple
Tree House, the former Summit
House, and the Old Bergen Church and Cemetery. The former village
of Bergen is now in the Journal Square area. The name Bergen is
retained in Jersey City with the community's Old Bergen Road, Bergen Avenue
and Bergen Square.

Bergen Township, which
included the former village of Bergen, was founded in October 1693, during
the period of English colonization in America. Bergen Township was later
part of the incorporation of the City of Jersey City in 1873 and the name
was discontinued.

References
:
Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration. New
Jersey Guide to Its Present and Past. New York: The Viking Press,
1939.
John Fiske. The Dutch and Quaker Colonies of America. Vol. I. New
York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903.
Harvey, Cornelius B., ed. Genealogical History of Hudson and Bergen
Counties, New Jersey. New York: The New Jersey Genealogical Publishing
Co., 1900.
La Rosa, William J. "Bergen" in Encyclopedia of New Jersey
by Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 2004. Lovero,Joan
D. Hudson County: The Left Bank. Sun Valley. CA: American Historical
Press, 1999.
Winfield, Charles H. History of the County of Hudson, New Jersey.
New York: Kennard & Hay Printing Company, 1874.Year Book of the Holland Society of New York. Vol. II. New York,
1914.